Angel of the Rink
by Urponator
Summary: Katsuki Yuuri, after his second crushing defeat in the Grand Prix Finals, has decided to quit figure skating. But Victor, who had until then been working as his guardian angel, suddenly receives an instruction to pretend to be a human and change his mind. Guardian Angel AU. Victuuri.
1. Chapter 1

_Hey there, thank you for picking up this fic!_

 _There are a few things I want to say to start with: first a thank you to my friend Hayley (ProfessionalCatFan / i-demand-a-hug) for proofreading this for me!_

 _And second, about this fic, this is going to be a long one and I'll update it every ten days from now on, so every 5th, 15th and 25th day of the month! The story is a guardian angel AU, and I believe the story will explain the setting somewhat but if there are questions feel free to ask!_

 _Third, although angels are heavily religious creatures, in this fic's context they're not really bound to any of the religions we have in our world, and the concept of "God" is... somewhat different. It'll be a point in the fic so it will be explained there, but these angels are more of my vision of angels and not really related to any religions that have angels in them. This is mostly because I'm personally agnostic and I wanted to keep actual religions out of this and keep it as a separate experience. Anyways, the story will discuss these things in later chapters! If you have questions, again you're free to ask!_

 _Anyways, not to make these notes any longer, I once again thank you and hope you enjoy this fic!_

* * *

Katsuki Yuuri. A _24-year_ old, world class figure skater, who completely lost in the Grand Prix Final just a month ago. There had been plenty of reasons why he had ended up losing and performing even worse than in the finals a year before. Even though there was an excuse, he ended up completely blaming himself for his loss and gave a statement to the press that he was planning on retiring, and returned home...

And that, Victor had presumed to be the end of his short time as Yuuri's guardian. He had been assigned as his guardian just a few months ago, to keep him safe during the competition. There had been a few moments where Victor had had to step in, to make sure he didn't sustain any lethal injuries but even he couldn't save Yuuri's performance.

Although he had really wanted to. Even now he felt sorrowful, going through the memories of the last performance and every moment he had so wished he could interfere. But his job was only to prevent Yuuri getting badly injured, and that was all that he had done. He hadn't kept that close watch to Yuuri after that; it seemed insensitive to snoop in, and there had been no signs of danger to his life. After all, most of the time Yuuri was just locked up in his room.

So he had spent most of his time sitting on the roof of the inn where Yuuri and his family lived, waiting for when he would presumably get his next assignment. And eventually he did.

However, it was not what he had expected. That night, he had been secretly soaking in the resort's hot springs while everyone was asleep, when he suddenly got the mission. Although it wasn't that anyone came to inform him of the mission; it was more that he got a realization of what he was supposed to do now, a sense of purpose that just came to his mind. After all, angels were rarely called back to heaven. Usually they just instinctively knew what they were supposed to do and where they were supposed to go.

But, Victor had been just rubbing his other wing peacefully, when he suddenly was hit with the realization that he was supposed to pose as a human on his next mission. Pose as a visitor from abroad, right in this particular inn. He blinked a couple times, letting go of his wing. This wasn't what he had expected. He had gotten a mission like this just a couple times before, but never had he been asked to pose as a human for someone he had been guarding.

And now he was supposed to pose as a human in front of the person he had been looking after for a while now. His wings fluttered a little, and he realized he was smiling. It wasn't unusual to grow fond of the human you were guarding, so Victor presumed this feeling of happiness sprung from being able to stay with Yuuri a little bit longer.

But another thing he understood at that moment was that he was supposed to inspire Yuuri to continue skating, and that made his heart flutter excitedly. That would mean another chance to see Yuuri skate again, and maybe this time he could help Yuuri win.

He got up from the water, walking a few steps away from the spring before he stretched his wings, fluttering them just a couple times before he began to pull them in. He would have to get used to not having his wings for a while again. It wasn't that hiding the wings was painful, but Victor personally didn't like it; he liked the feeling of flying, and the freedom it brought him.

But now gravity bound him down. He had fully retracted his wings now, and he stretched his arms this time. He needed to prepare his human self. A fake identity, as humans would call it.

Victor closed his eyes and raised his hand as he began to weave his place into this world.

* * *

Yuuri woke up from his sleep, hearing someone calling his name and knocking on the door. He blinked a couple times before he sat up and looked outside of the window. It was probably getting to evening already, since it was getting dark outside. His nap had lasted a bit longer than he had meant to.

"Yuuri~!" His mom's voice called out again from behind the door, and he shook his head to clear his thoughts before getting up.

"I'm awake. What is it…?" he asked. Hiroko smiled softly at him, and Yuuri felt a little twist in his heart. Even though he had been gone from home for so long and only to return with his tail between his legs, his mom had been incredibly supportive and kind the whole time. But it mostly made Yuuri feel guilty.

"Good morning, Yuuri!" she said, and after Yuuri returned the greeting she continued. "Could you go clean the men's bath? There's only the foreign visitor in there right now, so it would be a good time to clean it up," she explained.

"Foreign visitor?" Yuuri questioned immediately, trying to go through his memories to remember if there had been talk of one.

"Did you forget already? The one who arranged to stay in the unused banquet room while he's here. He came here yesterday evening…," Hiroko explained. When Yuuri still looked confused, she continued her explanation. "Don't you remember? I even told you he's apparently your fan."

"Ahh, that one," Yuuri remembered. He had probably wanted to forget that, since he didn't really want to meet any of his fans right now. Not after that flop. He opened his mouth, preparing to refuse to go clean the bath. But looking at his mother's face, he realized he couldn't just say no after being asked for help. He would have to meet the visitor eventually no matter what he did, so there was no use avoiding it.

Besides, if he was lucky he might be able to avoid being seen by him entirely.

"Alright, I'll go clean up," Yuuri said and his mother smiled widely at him.

"Thank you, Yuuri! I'll make food for you when you're done, alright?" she said. Yuuri nodded, and as she headed off, he closed the door. He should change his clothes to something more suitable than his sleepwear, that he had not bothered to change out of before his nap.

Hopefully the foreign visitor wouldn't be too social.

* * *

Yuuri opened the door to the bathroom hesitantly and looked around. He couldn't see the visitor anywhere, so he was probably soaking in the hot springs outside. He sighed in relief as he began to mop the floor. If he just did this quickly, he would be able to slip away before the guest came in.

Although, if he had been there already when Hiroko came to get him, it would probably be nigh impossible to do this fast enough to not meet the guest. Yuuri still decided to at least try, and he kept mopping the fastest he could. Which was not much faster, since he couldn't exactly do sloppy work either.

He sighed deeply as he cleaned one corner of the room. This wasn't exactly what he had imagined his future as a figure skater would be, trying to avoid a fan desperately. But he couldn't help it: he was ashamed of having suffered a bad loss in the finals for two years in a row now. And if this foreign visitor was his fan, he might have… no, he must have at least seen his last loss.

Yuuri bit his lip. He had been mulling this same thing over and over in his mind, and even he was starting to get tired of his attitude. He should get his thoughts together and start thinking of what he was going to do now that he was retiring. He had been spending all his time at home until now. If he continued this way, he would end up taking care of the hot springs for the rest of his life…

Maybe that wasn't that bad of a future. He had had his fun with figure skating, and maybe it was time to stop while he still had some pride left in him. It wasn't that his career as a figure skater had been that bad after all, despite the humiliating losses at the Grand Prix Finals.

With these thoughts, he was about to finish cleaning up. There was just a little bit left, so if he just hurried he might be able to actually finish this before the guest came out of the bath…

Unless the guest wasn't standing right in front of him at this particular moment. Yuuri dropped his gaze immediately away from him, and tried to keep mopping in hopes the other would just ignore him.

"You…," he said instead however, and Yuuri flinched a little bit as he turned to look at the guest. The foreigner had a smile on his lips. "You're Katsuki Yuuri, aren't you?"

Yuuri looked at him in the eyes, trying to return the smile but he could feel his smile twitching. Maybe it wasn't still too late to run away.

* * *

 _Thank you for reading the first chapter! I hope it somewhat managed to catch your interest, haha~ I apologize if the characters seem anyhow stiff, this is my first time writing them in a longer fic so it might me take a little while to get used to them... But I'll keep trying my best, and rewatching the series to get a hang of their character! Also, some things about Victor might seem a little different since he's an angel, but I'll try to keep him as close to his original self as possible._

 _But, not to blabber on I thank you again for reading! The next chapter will be up on 25th of February. I hope to see you there!_


	2. Chapter 2

"Um… Is there something I can help you with?" Yuuri tried to say with the blandest voice he could manage, hoping it would somehow deter the conversation away from him. Like if he tried to remain as uninteresting as possible, the other might just change his mind and leave him be.

But all his hopes of being left alone were utterly blown away when the foreigner grabbed his hands and took a step closer. It was then that Yuuri became extremely aware that they were in a bathhouse and the other was butt naked. He could feel his whole body tense up, both from embarrassment and nervousness as he awaited what the other had to say.

"I'm so glad to finally be able to talk to you!" the stranger said, smiling widely. "I'm a fan of yours. I saw every one of your performances this season!"

Yuuri could feel a rock fall to the bottom of his stomach at those words.

"A-ah, I see… Uh, thank you for your support, uhm…?" he stuttered out, trying to ignore the desire to just get out of there. Minako would scold him if he wasn't nice to his fans. The other blinked a couple times, before he seemed to realize what Yuuri was trying to ask of him.

"Oh, I'm Victor. Victor Nikiforov," he introduced himself, finally letting go of Yuuri's hands. Yuuri took a couple small steps back right as he did, completely out of reflex. Victor seemed a bit confused by that but he didn't say anything about it, much to Yuuri's relief.

"Uhm, okay. Yeah. Thank you." Yuuri tried his best to ignore the fact that Victor was naked, and thus moved his gaze up but the other was staring at him so intently that he didn't really want to look right back at him. So his eyes ended up wandering somewhere around the other's hair. It seemed like the other was expecting him to say something else, and he was starting to feel panicky. He didn't know what to say in a situation like this! He should have just stayed in bed, that way he might have avoided this whole encounter…

"Oh, should I say something more?" Victor suddenly said, like he had gotten a realization. "I enjoyed your short program at China the most." Yuuri lowered his eyes in shock to look at the other's face. That was the one he had had the most confidence in, albeit it hadn't netted nearly as many points as he had thought first. The other seemed genuine with his compliment, and it made Yuuri even more flustered.

"T-thank you, again. I'm, I'm sorry for losing in the end," Yuuri said. He really wanted to look at the floor, away from Victor's bright smile, but the other was _still naked_ and he probably should start planning some sort of way to back away from the room. "Uhm, I think I need to uh, go help at the desk now. Uh, let's talk later if you want," he said hesitantly, taking a couple steps towards the bucket of water he had with him to pick it up.

"Oh, I see," Victor said, his voice sounding almost disappointed and for a moment Yuuri was reminded of how Vicchan looked when he refused to give him any more treats. But he didn't stop to think about that any longer and slipped out of the room.

"Let's talk soon!" He could hear Victor's voice call out just before he walked out of the bathroom.

* * *

Victor let out a sigh as he left the bathroom, dressed in the hot springs' clothes he had been given. Maybe he had done something wrong? It had been a long time since he last posed as a human, maybe he had acted somewhat weird considering how Yuuri had just ran off. And after he had finally been able to meet Yuuri properly, face to face…

He pursed his lips as he walked through the hallway. He would probably have to rethink his strategy if this approach wouldn't start working. This was just more natural for him, and since he knew Yuuri already it felt easier to just be familiar…

He walked to the main hall, just in time to see Yuuri receiving a bowl of food from his mother.

"Ah, Yuuri!" Victor called excitedly. The other was visibly startled, and turned to look at him with an awkward smile. Yuuri didn't wait for Victor to walk over, and instead he just bowed and walked away with his food towards his bedroom. Victor looked after him dejectedly.

"I'm sorry about our Yuuri," Hiroko said gently to him. "He's still a bit upset about the Grand Prix. I'm sure he'll come around eventually, but until then I hope you can be patient and give him some time." She gave a small smile to Victor, and he nodded slowly in return.

"I understand…," he said, although that was somewhat of a lie. Most humans were cheered up by meeting someone who admired them, and preferred the attention of such people. But he supposed that wasn't the case with all people… He talked a little bit with Hiroko, before he started to wander off to his own room.

Give Yuuri some time, huh… He wasn't exactly sure how much of that he had with this mission of his. He hadn't really gotten an idea of a specific timeframe for this, but he would presume he didn't exactly have forever to do this. At least, if Yuuri didn't continue skating in at least some form he might get rusty…

Not that Victor really knew how much exactly a professional figure skater would need to practice. But at least, before the competitions, when he had first been assigned to guard him, Yuuri had been practicing a lot.

Now he wasn't sure when Yuuri had last skated. The days he had spent on the roof had passed in mostly a daze for him, since Yuuri had barely left the house and thus, nothing interesting had happened.

He sat on his bed as soon as he got to his room, and sighed. He didn't sense any human presence nearby, so he decided to let out his wings for a moment to relax a little bit. There wasn't any real reason to it, but the sight of his wings soothed him and made it easier to think clear. His hair naturally got back to its original length now that he was letting his cover loose for a moment, reaching almost his lower back.

Of course, today was just his first day here. It wouldn't do to get unnecessarily worried about completing his mission just yet, but despite knowing that he still felt a bit anxious. It wasn't really over the completion of the mission, either. It was more like… he really wanted Yuuri to have a favorable opinion of him, so he wanted to do this properly. But he was also excited to finally be able to talk to Yuuri so he didn't really like the thought of taking his time either.

As he was thinking, one feather fell from his wing to the floor and he reached to pick it up. If he was going to do this a lot, taking out his wings while still in visible form, he would have to take care to not leave feathers lying around in his room. A few feathers he could lie that they got out of his pillow but if he shed a lot of them he presumed someone might notice. Especially when his feathers were much bigger than the ones in his pillow.

As he examined the feather, he noticed some gray tint towards the end of it, and he frowned. His wings had always been his pride and joy, but recently he had noticed some graying, and it bothered him.

He would have to take better care.

* * *

Yuuri stared at the bowl of food in front of him.

He felt pretty guilty now. No matter how down he felt, he couldn't really deny he had just ignored Victor completely. He sighed and picked up his chopsticks. Even going out his way to hide in his room to eat….

Pretty pathetic, huh.

But really, he just didn't know what to say to Victor. 'Thank you' and 'I'm sorry' were what he usually said to people who approached him, shook their hands and that was it. He didn't have to talk to them any more than that.

He poked his food around absentmindedly. Well, he would just have to think of some conversation topics to derive the conversation away from me. Like, ask about Victor himself, or maybe some other skaters, or if nothing else then just regular stuff people talked about. Like… weather or something.

But for now he would just finish his food. And then he should take Vicchan for a walk. And then…

… Yuuri really didn't have any other excuses he could make to prolong it, now did he. He sighed deeply and continued to eat. Maybe he could call Minako over, have her as a third person in the situation to make it a little bit easier.

Before he managed to think any more about that option, someone knocked on his door.

"Yuuri!" he heard his mother call again, and he got up to go see what she wanted.

"Yes?" he asked. His mother was smiling again, but although it still held the same gentleness, there was some small tint of self-satisfaction, like she was proud of having thought of something.

"I was thinking, maybe you could show the foreigner around town? We are all glued to tending the hot springs after all, but it would be good for someone to show him around. You can take Vicchan with you too, give him a good long walk once in a while!" She was practically beaming as she spoke, and Yuuri smiled hesitantly. He presumed he really had no choice.

* * *

 _Thank you for reading the second chapter as well! I hope you enjoyed it~ Also just a mention, since I didn't talk about it before but I think this will be a long fic, probably at least 50k words so things might get started a bit slow hehe._

 _And another thing! Since I'm not sure how much I'll be able to explain about how the angels of this fic function within the story, I'll start sharing little angel facts on the end notes from now on so that it's a bit clearer what they are like!_

 _So the first fact is that angels have three forms in this story: they have their basically so-called human form that's the only one visible to humans. They can have their wings out in this form however, if they please, and modify it however they want. The second form is their angel form, in which they are not visible to humans and are usually a lot taller (ranging from 10ft to even 50ft, depending on the angel). In this form their shape is a fixed one, although size may change. And then there's their true form, which isn't really humane at all, so it might be monstrous or it might be some sort of shape. They don't really ever take this form, so usually no one else knows what their true form looks like except themselves._

 _That's the fact for today, thank you so much again for reading this chapter! The next one will be up on 5th of March, I hope to see you there!_


	3. Chapter 3

Yuuri sighed silently to himself and raised his scarf a little bit. It was pretty windy and cold, definitely not the kind of weather suited for long walks around town. But Victor didn't seem phased by the elements at all - instead he had been chipper and talkative the whole time, asking about the town and Yuuri. Even the unenthusiastic replies from Yuuri didn't seem to dim his mood, which Yuuri was fairly thankful for. Despite his own low mood, he really didn't want to bring others down with him.

Especially when Victor was not only a stranger, but someone who seemed to look up to him. Yuuri couldn't help but feel like he had been nothing but a disappointment so far in comparison to what Victor might have expected, but he at least wanted to avoid disappointing him any more than he already had.

And at least Vicchan was compensating for his lack of enthusiasm, happily jumping around and barking every time when Victor got excited about something. With Yuuri just walking there on the other end of the leash, practically moping, it was more like Vicchan was the one guiding Victor through the town. Yuuri just verbalized all the explanations.

They were already starting to end their walk circle soon, though. They were already mostly on the way back, in fact. Yuuri looked around a bit absentmindedly. This route had actually been part of his way to school when he had been younger, and it was somewhat relieving to see not much had changed. Some of the houses had been repainted, and there was a dog on the yard of one. It began to bark at the sight of them.

Yuuri glanced at Vicchan, who didn't seem particularly phased - in fact, Vicchan just stared at the other dog with curiosity. At least Yuuri had managed to raise him well. Victor was looking at the barking dog with a really similar expression to Vicchan, making Yuuri almost smile in amusement.

But, as the conflict between the dogs fell as soon as it had begun when the other dog was called inside, they continued walking and soon turned a corner to another street, and Victor began to look around again.

"Yuuri, what is that shop over there?" Victor pointed to a small shop ahead of them.

"Oh, that one. It's a bakery." In fact, it was a bakery very familiar to Yuuri. Back when he had been a kid, he had gone there occasionally with Yuuko, who would treat him when there was something to celebrate. Like when Yuuri had won a small, local competition or when he had performed well in tests.

But now it felt like it had been forever since that time. He had been gone for quite a long time after all… It was a weird feeling, to have the bakery and even the whole city be so familiar, yet so distant and strange. But maybe it was he himself who was distant and strange to the city, and not the other way around.

"Is it a good one?" Victor asked. Yuuri blinked a couple of times, before a small smile made its way to his lips.

"Yeah, it is."

* * *

Victor hummed to himself cheerfully as he held the brown bag close to his chest. Yuuri had agreed to stop by the bakery and Victor had ended up buying quite a lot of stuff out of curiosity. Yuuri had seemed a bit confused initially. But perhaps he had reasoned it to be because Victor was a foreigner - as far as he knew, at least - since he had gotten over that confusion quite quickly.

Still, Victor should probably be a bit more careful with his actions, so that he didn't raise any suspicions. Luckily very few would ever even begin to suspect someone acting strange would be an angel, instead of just being an oddball. But in general it was better to be careful and settle in as well as they could, and definitely avoid attracting attention.

He glanced at Yuuri. The other seemed to be trying to cover it up, but Victor could tell Yuuri was feeling tired as soon as he used his powers to look deeper. Unfortunately, just detecting feelings was all he could do, so it was completely up to him to decipher the reason for them.

They were almost back at the Yu-topia, though. Victor hoped that getting back home would make Yuuri feel better again. He had noticed Yuuri's emotions fluctuating a lot during the walk. And although he couldn't yet tell if that was a good or a bad thing in the longer run, he knew that rest was important after going through cycles of feelings.

Vicchan barked excitedly when he noticed they were almost back home, and began to pull on his leash slightly like he was trying to hurry Yuuri. The latter frowned slightly in response, but he did speed up a little bit. Victor followed suit, not wanting to be left behind.

When they reached the front door of the house, Yuuri opened it while Vicchan jumped around him excitedly.

"We're back…," Yuuri called as soon as he stepped in, removing Vicchan's leash before he started to take off his shoes. Vicchan immediately ran off, towards the kitchen as far as Victor could tell. Yuuri's mom came out of the kitchen.

"Welcome back!" She walked to them, and noticed the bag Victor was holding. "Oh, you visited that bakery? How nice! Did you have a good time?" The smile on her face was very gentle, and Victor found himself returning it without even thinking.

"Of course! It was really interesting. Hasetsu is such a beautiful place!" he answered, genuinely meaning everything he said. He had been flying above the town before, but it was a completely different experience to actually walk around. Especially since he had been able to ask about everything he was interested in.

"Ah, that's good! Would you like me to boil some tea to have with those?" Hiroko asked, nodding towards the brown bag. Victor nodded.

"Thank you!"

"Don't mention it. Of course we take care of our guests," she said with a smile before walking back to the kitchen. Victor looked after her for a moment, before turning to look at Yuuri who had finished taking off his jacket while they had been busy with their conversation. Their eyes met and Yuuri gave him an awkward smile, nodding a bit.

"Ah, if you'll excuse me now…" Yuuri started to move slightly towards his room as he spoke. Victor couldn't help opening his mouth in shock.

"Oh, won't you eat with me?" he asked. He hadn't meant to sound so disappointed, but it was clear from Yuuri's expression that the other felt guilty from hearing him say that. Perhaps he should have tried to sound more nonchalant, instead of letting his own feelings show…

"I-I guess I can," Yuuri answered, his shoulders dropping just slightly. It made Victor feel a bit bad to see, but soon it changed to feeling happy to be able to hang out with Yuuri longer.

"Okay!" he said excitedly, and began to finally take his own coat off. Yuuri wandered off to one of the tables in the meantime, turning on the television and slumping down. Victor soon followed after with the bag of buns, setting it on the table while he sat opposite of Yuuri. Without thinking about it, he just looked at Yuuri. Yuuri was staring at the television, seeming completely uninterested in whatever there was on. Occasionally he frowned and pursed his lips in response to something happening, in what appeared to be a soap opera when Victor glanced at the television as well.

It didn't take long until Hiroko came out of the kitchen with a tray with two teacups and plates, Vicchan following right behind her. She set it down and began to pour the tea for them, while the dog found his way next to Yuuri.

"Ah, why don't you join us?" Victor asked Hiroko cheerfully. "I bought a lot after all!" Yuuri might feel more comfortable with his mother around, too.

"Really? Hmm, maybe I can take a little break then…" Hiroko seemed happy to have been asked, and began to head towards the kitchen to probably get a cup for herself as well. In the meantime, Yuuri took his own cup and began to blow on it to cool it down. Victor looked at him, and was a bit disappointed to realize Yuuri seemed even more stiff now. Maybe he had thought wrong…

"I'm sorry to make you wait!" Hiroko said when she returned, but despite her words of apology she seemed to be all smiles. Victor didn't really need to use his powers to know she was currently happy.

They began to eat, all three of them, and Hiroko kept up a conversation the whole time, talking about everything from neighbors to about what she had seen on the news. At first it was mostly Victor who replied to her, but eventually Yuuri warmed up to the conversation as well and began to comment on the things Hiroko said. And as he did, Victor noticed that Yuuri was starting to relax. Perhaps it just took some time.

As they conversed, at some point Vicchan seemed to grow disappointed with the lack of attention he was getting from Yuuri, and wandered to Victor's side of the table, settling down next to him. Victor blinked in surprise at first. He rarely interacted with animals since they usually didn't like angels, so he began to hesitantly but also excitedly pet Vicchan.

Hiroko began to talk about Vicchan, and how he seemed to like Victor, and Victor noticed that Yuuri was smiling. That smile made him honestly even happier than Vicchan liking him.

* * *

 _Thank you for reading the third chapter, I hope you enjoyed it!_

 _Today's angel fact is more about their so-called human form! I said they can modify their appearance quite freely when they're posing as humans, but most of them prefer to keep their looks similar to their angel form, mostly out of personal comfort. This is of course, personal preference thing too so some might change up their physical appearance a lot etc. They're also restrained by human limits as well, so they cannot for example make themselves taller than humans can normally be._

 _In this form, they can also use most of their powers, as long as they don't somehow get seen using them! They can for example fly still in this form, and they can detect emotions and to some extent, intentions of the people around them._

 _Anyways, that's for today! The next chapter will be up on 15th of March, I hope to see you there!_


	4. Chapter 4

Yuuri sighed as he closed his laptop, and leaned back in his chair. For almost a week now, he had been just showing Victor around the town every day and keeping him company. Pretty soon he had run out of relevant places to show as far as he thought, but then Victor started asking about his old schools and the ballet studio and where his friends lived now and had lived in the past.

In fact, the only place they hadn't visited was the Ice Castle. It was like Victor was tactfully avoiding that place, since after their first conversation he hadn't even mentioned skating to him. So Yuuri couldn't help but think that this was consideration towards him, which made him feel a bit more at ease but…

It also made him feel uneasy. The fact that even a new person could see he was not doing well… it made him feel naked, like the other was peering right at the weakness in his heart. And he didn't like that, he didn't want to be seen as weak or in need of assistance. But at the same time, that same kindness helped him maintain this status quo.

He glanced at the clock on his wall. It would soon be time for another walk with Victor and Vicchan. He wasn't exactly sure where to go next - there wasn't much left that he had to show, not at least anything he was familiar with. Of course there were a lot of neighborhoods and places he had never visited even the whole time he had lived in this town, but based on what Victor seemed to be interested in - which was _him,_ Katsuki Yuuri - those wouldn't hold any interest.

"I guess there's that one playground in the park we used to play at…," he muttered to himself, and got up from his chair only to go lie in his bed. He still had fifteen minutes, so he might as well just loiter while he waited.

He began to absentmindedly go through his social media accounts, only to find out that no, not much had happened between him closing his laptop and walking to his bed. Soon he grew bored of that and sat up to look out of the window. It was still cloudy and windy outside, the weather having been stuck to this same unpleasantness for the past week.

He was glancing around the yard, to find something remotely interesting, when he noticed a single white feather on one of the bare tree branches. It was fairly large, so he had a hard time believing it would be from a seagull… He didn't manage to think more on it when he heard a knock on his door.

"Yuuri!" Victor called for him from the other side of the door, his voice as bright and cheerful as nearly always. Yuuri turned his eyes to the door, smiling a bit to himself before he went to open it.

"Hey, Victor," he answered. Vicchan was there too, panting excitedly since he knew they were going on another long walk. In fact, Yuuri's mom had said that he had been a lot more cheerful lately, which made Yuuri feel a bit guilty for not having done this since he came back. "I'm ready to go."

"Alright!" Victor seemed to almost be shining when he smiled, and Yuuri lowered his eyes reflexively. He still felt a bit awkward around the… constant energy and affection Victor seemed to radiate. They began to walk to the hall to get their shoes, and on the way Victor explained how he had helped clean up the tables today. (Apparently, he had only taken some bowls into the kitchen; but he seemed really excited so Yuuri decided not to say anything about that.)

When they got to outside, Yuuri remembered the feather and began to look for the tree again, in hopes to see the feather. Victor gave him a questioning glance when he slowed down to search for it and Yuuri shook his head.

"Ah, sorry. I just saw what looked like a big, white feather on a tree when I was looking out earlier," he explained. "It just came to mind. It isn't anything important, let's go." Victor gave him what Yuuri could only describe as an expressionless smile; it was a smile certainly but something about it felt like it was lacking the usual… cheeriness.

"Oh, I see! It's okay," Victor said before turning forward again. "By the way, where are we going today?" Yuuri looked at Victor for a few seconds, a bit baffled by the mild reaction but he figured he must have imagined it. Either that or Victor was just really disinterested in birds. He caught up to Victor and answered his question, pushing these thoughts to the back of his mind.

It was probably nothing.

* * *

"So yeah, this is a park, and there's the playground," Yuuri explained, pointing towards the other end of the park. There weren't any kids around right now, albeit he wasn't that surprised with weather like this. The park looked pretty bleak now as an adult; other than the few swings, the sandbox and the small climbing frame with a slide there wasn't really anything else. As a kid it had seemed so much more exciting.

"Oh, can we go play in there?" Victor asked, like there was nothing weird about two adult men going to play in a children's playground.

"Sorry, you can't bring dogs into there. If you want to go play yourself then sure but I can't come with Vicchan so…," Yuuri said. Victor frowned a bit as he tilted his head.

"Why can't you bring dogs?" Victor asked. Yuuri was a bit putoff by the question - he had presumed it would be common sense why, but maybe that wasn't the case everywhere.

"Well, there's the risk of dogs, you know, pooping. And they don't want that in places where children play, especially since small kids tend to eat things they find." Victor seemed to understand his explanation, but he still seemed a bit disappointed. Yuuri wasn't exactly sure what he was so disappointed by - it was just a small, boring playground after all.

Yuuri sniffed, feeling the cold wind starting to get to him. Walking all the way here just to see a small playground… Now that he thought about it, he could remember there being a set of swings closer to their home too. It wasn't particularly a _park_ as much as it was just a small, open space with the swings in there, surrounded by grass, but he still remembered going there often as a small kid.

"If you wanted to use the swings, there's a couple closer to the Yu-topia than this. We just used to play here more often since this was closer to school and where Nishigori lived back then," Yuuri explained. Vicchan was starting to tug on his leash, wanting to go somewhere else than stare at the playground. Yuuri glanced at Victor who seemed satisfied with the answer.

"Then will you go play with me someday?" Victor asked, his voice sounding so genuinely excited that Yuuri couldn't even refuse, had he wanted to. But really, there wasn't much reason to refuse either. It was harmless fun.

* * *

During the night, when everyone was surely sleeping, Victor walked out into the yard to look for the tree Yuuri had claimed to have seen the feather. He frowned a bit as he looked around. He hadn't really even been to the yard with his wings out that much, so how had one flown all the way here…

He spotted the feather soon, and flew up to get it. Usually he would have probably gotten out his wings to fly, but honestly he had been picking up feathers almost every day. Of course he didn't particularly _need_ to sleep, so gathering feathers was a good way to kill time too, but now that he was trying to pose as a human, he found he quite preferred to sleep when others were asleep too. He didn't have to be alert all the time now for protecting, after all, so he had the leisure to rest like humans did.

He twisted the feather on his fingers as he floated down, and when he reached the ground he made it disappear. He stood there for a moment, just staring at his empty hand before he decided to check the rest of the yard. It wouldn't do any harm to make sure there weren't any more of them laying around.

Victor looked up to the sky, to see it still covered by clouds. Soon it would rain, and then the clouds would be gone for some time, that much Victor could figure out from the air around him. He looked forward to seeing sunshine again; it usually made humans feel better and he wanted Yuuri to be even a little bit happier. Yuuri had been slowly opening up to him, talking with more ease and smiling a lot more often, but Victor could still sense the heaviness on his mind.

He sighed. He really wished he knew how to better help, but there was no way for him to affect the emotions of people around him any other way but interacting with them.

So he could just hope that what he was doing was helping Yuuri. But at the same time, he was really excited just to be able to talk with Yuuri so much, and hearing him talk about the part of his life Victor hadn't been able to witness. It felt like he was learning about Yuuri all over again, and it was making him feel light, like he might float up in the air any moment.

And he was happy Yuuri was letting him experience these things with him, like eating the same baked goods Yuuri had enjoyed when he was a kid, or going to the swings with him some day. It wasn't that much, but it still made Victor feel like he was growing closer to Yuuri, like he was slowly experiencing the things Yuuri had experienced through his life.

He stretched his arms as his cycle around the yard ended, without having found any more feathers much to his relief. He glanced in the direction of Yuuri's room: he could sense that the other was sleeping now. Although, from what Victor could gather, he was tossing around quite restlessly. He usually went to sleep late and slept late, and Victor felt it might be partly because he couldn't sleep well; another thing he'd much love to help with but was unable to.

"I hope you sleep well tonight, Yuuri," he whispered quietly. There wasn't anything else he could do but wish.

* * *

 _Thank you for reading the fourth chapter as well, I hope you've enjoyed the fic so far!_

 _The angel fact this time is about their ability to fly, since although the wings are a huge part of it, there are a few other elements to it! The wings wouldn't actually be able to carry their weight on their own, so when they fly they use their powers to make themselves lighter so they can glide in the air and use wings to control their flight. They also use their powers to lift off to begin with, by sort of levitating up from the ground by simply "pushing" the ground with their powers - like, imagine two magnets rejecting each other, it's that kind of effect._

 _The next chapter will be up on 25th of March, I hope to see you there!_


	5. Chapter 5

After two weeks, Yuuri had run out of places to show other than the Ice Castle. They had even passed by the place a few times, but curiously enough Victor never asked about it. Yuuri presumed it was because he somehow already knew that the skating rink was there, and that was why he never asked…

He pursed his lips, leaning back on his chair. He was growing frustrated with this situation, although not because of Victor. What he was getting annoyed at was his own way of acting, wilfully going along with the sympathy the other was showing him. It made him feel absolutely pathetic.

He sighed and got up from his chair, going to his bed to look out of the window. He had been prepared to see an empty yard, but instead Victor was there, sweeping the path. Yuuri couldn't hear it from here of course, but it looked like he was humming. Victor seemed to hum songs from advertisements often, and theme songs from shows he had watched since coming here. Perhaps Yuuri would have to introduce him to some other music to hum to… It was a bit weird, really.

Yuuri couldn't help but smile as he watched the other clean up earnestly. After Victor had arrived, he had stopped being locked up in the house as much, and it seemed like the rest of his family was happy about that too. Honestly, Victor coming here almost felt like fate, like the world was trying to cheer him up.

It was… almost too much like fate. It was making Yuuri feel weird, and the fact that the other was ridiculously attractive didn't help anything at all. It made him think silly thoughts like this was something special, but that couldn't be. Victor was simply a visitor at their inn, here to do… something. It occurred to Yuuri that he wasn't exactly sure why Victor had come all the way here, but as soon as that thought passed his mind his thoughts began to wander away from the topic.

Vicchan had been extremely happy to have someone actively interacting with him too. Victor often played with him outside from what Yuuri had gathered, and then would pet him as he watched television in the hall.

Yuuri leaned his elbow against the windowsill as he kept staring at Victor. Victor was about to finish sweeping the walkway, when he seemed to notice a piece of trash on the ground. He leaned over to it, but he didn't bend down to pick it up. Instead he placed his hand over it, and...

Then he seemed to sense he was being stared at, because he suddenly turned to look at Yuuri's window. Yuuri jumped in surprise when their eyes met, but before he managed to retreat away from the window, to hide in shame, Victor smiled brightly and waved at him. Hesitantly, Yuuri waved back before getting away.

He really shouldn't have stared like that. How awkward could he be…?

* * *

Victor let his hand fall down when Yuuri disappeared from the window. That had been close. He hadn't even stopped to check if anyone was looking at him from afar until the last second. He had just presumed no one was, since he didn't sense any presence outside with him…

But luckily his instincts had picked up on it right before the mistake. He turned back to the trash and this time bend over to pick up the piece of paper - it seemed like a candy wrapper actually - and put it into his pocket. As he should have done to begin with.

Victor stretched his arms before heading back towards the house. He had gotten quite bored with himself and had asked if he could have something to do, and Hiroko had asked him to sweep outside. It wasn't much, but it made Victor feel better to help out instead of just wasting time.

"I'm done sweeping!" he announced as he walked in, and Hiroko came to the hallway.

"Aw, thank you so much for helping!" she answered cheerily. "Oh, could you also take this package to Yuuri? It arrived this morning but it's a bit heavy..." She pointed towards a box next to the shoe rack. It wasn't really that big of a box, but when Victor went to pick it up it really was quite heavy - it felt like it might have books in it.

"Thank you!" Hiroko waved after him as Victor began to walk towards Yuuri's room with the box. It was a bit tiring to carry for his current human body, so Victor began to levitate the box while still holding onto it like he was carrying it normally.

He energetically got up the stairs and walked to Yuuri's room, happy to have an excuse to see the other. It was still hours to the time of their usual walk. When he got to the door, he stopped in front of it, realizing he couldn't actually knock while holding the box.

"Yuuri! Can you open the door?"

In response he heard sounds like someone was putting something away, before Yuuri came to the door to open it.

"Victor?" Yuuri asked, seeming surprised until he saw the box and his name on top of it. "O-oh, thanks." Yuuri offered his hands to take the box from him, but Victor just walked into the room and went to set it down on the bed.

"What's in the box?" he asked nonchalantly. He wasn't that interested really, but he wanted to bring up some sort of topic to talk about. But Yuuri seemed to immediately get defensive at his question, avoiding his eyes.

"Oh, uh. Just some books I ordered." At such vague response, Victor got immediately more curious.

"What kind of books?" he asked as he sat on Yuuri's bed, next to the box. He smiled, in hopes that it would make Yuuri feel more at ease but it seemed to make the other even more uncomfortable.

"Uh, some fiction… And books about raising flowers… and some career books..."

"Career books?" Victor couldn't stop himself from asking, and immediately Yuuri seemed to close off completely, like he didn't know what to say anymore. "Does that mean you're really not going to skate anymore?"

"Well, that was the plan. I was going to start looking for some other things I could do in life. It's not like I can…"

"Hey, Yuuri." Yuuri's explanation was cut off by his sister who appeared in the doorway, seemingly not knowing what they had been talking about. Victor waved at her - he hadn't really talked with Mari a lot since she seemed to always be more busy, but she seemed nice. "There was a package for… Oh, you got it already."

"Ah, yeah, Victor brought it for me," Yuuri said, clearly relieved. Victor felt a small twinge in his heart at that expression: not that he didn't want Yuuri to feel relief, but… it was upsetting to know he had caused that much distress to Yuuri to have him be so relieved now.

"Alright, I was just visiting my room so I thought to tell you about it but guess he beat me to it," Mari said, leaning against the doorframe. "I guess those books finally arrived. I hope some of them are of use, my friends did recommend them but that's also up to a person if they help at all..."

Yuuri just hmm'd in agreement, and Victor noticed he was deliberately avoiding looking at him. In fact, it seemed like Yuuri wanted him gone… Victor held back a sigh and turned to look at Mari, only to have their eyes meet.

"Oh yeah, has Yuuri taken you skating yet?" she asked like she had been waiting to ask it. Victor shook his head. "Yuuri, you should teach him sometime. It's your specialty after all."

"Haa…" Yuuri seemed to be getting uncomfortable again.

"Have you ever skated before?" Mari asked and Victor smiled at first to stall for a little time. What should he say… he hadn't actually skated before, but he still knew how to and wasn't that confident in his ability to pretend he didn't… So he would probably have to just go with the flow, and see how well that turned out.

"A little bit? I've skated somewhat but I'm not that good at it," he answered vaguely, so that no matter how well he did end up skating, it wouldn't be too suspicious. Mari raised her other eyebrow questioningly, but seemed to brush it off quickly as she stretched her arms.

"Well, have Yuuri take you sometime and help you. I'm going to get back to work now." She waved her hand as she began to walk away, leaving the two of them in an awkward silence. Victor smiled hesitantly; he wasn't really sure what he should say in a situation like this. Yuuri seemed to want him to leave but also he felt like this was a good chance to talk with Yuuri more about skating finally, since that _was_ what he was here for.

Yuuri sighed eventually, sitting down on his chair.

"Well, uh. Should we go skate someday?" he asked, seeming flustered. "Or oh, of course if you actually want me to teach you. She just went on and on, so she might have been wrong as well, haha..." Yuuri was still avoiding looking at Victor, but he was actually talking about the skating on his own, and Victor smiled brightly again, leaning forward on the bed.

"Of course!"

* * *

 _Thank you so much for reading the fifth chapter as well!_

 _Today's angel fact is about their angel form! As I have said before, this form is not visible to humans and this is a lot more fixed form for them. Their size might change with various things - it's often a combination of power, status, condition etc. So if their rank changes, or their condition gets better or worse, or if they lose/gain power, their size will change. With the guardian angels that Victor is, the general height in angel form is around six to eight feet (180cm to 250cm). But the way they look remains quite the same - in fact pretty much the only thing they can adjust in this form is their hair, quite similarly to humans._

 _Also, as I talked about the way they fly in the last chapter: in this form, they are always a lot lighter than a human that size would be. A lot of this comes from them not being mortal beings but more like a magically concentrated being, and thus being kind of "hollow" inside. It's more like an image of their self, less than a physical body._

 _Anyways, the next chapter will be up on 5th of April! I hope to see you there~!_


	6. Chapter 6

Yuuri walked to his bed to sit down and look outside the window, as he had lately taken the habit to do... As he had expected by the noise, Victor was outside playing with Vicchan. He smiled a bit, watching Victor struggle to get the ball back from the dog - Vicchan had never quite learned the fact that if he wanted the ball to be thrown again, he would have to let it go first.

Yuuri let out a little sigh as he leaned against the windowsill. He had kind of promised they would go to the Ice Castle the next day, but he was already having regrets about it. But the way Victor's eyes had lit up when he had mentioned they could go skate together… Yuuri pursed his lips together, feeling his cheeks get warmer. He was weak, honestly.

Victor got the ball back from Vicchan, and cheerily threw it across the yard. As the dog ran after it, Victor began to look around and soon his eyes were drawn to Yuuri's window. Yuuri jumped a bit in surprise, but this time he decided to just wave his hand calmly. Victor smiled widely and began to wave both of his hands.

"Yuuri! Yuuri!" he called suddenly and Yuuri opened the window, confused.

"What is it...?"

"Can you come down?" Victor smiled after saying that, clearly not having any intention to explain why. Yuuri pondered for a moment whether he should ask, but eventually he just nodded and closed the window. He wasn't really doing anything other than staring at Victor while waiting for something to happen in social media, so he might as well just go see what Victor wanted.

There were a few customers when he went down, and he sneaked past them as quietly as he could, not wanting to talk to anyone. Mari saw him sneaking, but she just turned to look the other way when she noticed Yuuri trying to be stealthy. Yuuri didn't know whether it was out of consideration or if she just really didn't care, but he was grateful nevertheless.

He put on his shoes and jacket, not bothering to close it. As soon as he stepped outside, he saw Victor throwing the ball again, and then wiping his hand on his pants.

"Oh, Yuuri!" he turned to look at him.

"Uh, if you want a handkerchief to wipe that drool off, I can get one from inside?" Yuuri asked, still standing in the doorway. Victor shook his head in response.

"Ah, no, it's fine! I wanted to talk to you instead," he said, softly. Yuuri just nodded slowly, and looked down at the spot on his pants Victor had wiped the drool off to. Curiously enough, there was no sign of stain… "It's about tomorrow." Yuuri lifted his eyes back to Victor, immediately feeling a bit nervous. Victor's voice sounded a lot more serious than it had before, and Yuuri wasn't entirely sure how to interpret that.

"Okay…," he just acknowledged, not knowing what he was supposed to say. He hadn't really prepared for a serious talk.

"Can we go to the swings to talk?" Victor suggested, giving a reassuring smile that really didn't do much to help Yuuri's nervousness.

* * *

Yuuri sat down on the other swing, stretching his legs out in the front. Victor sat on the other one, and unlike Yuuri who was sitting still, he started to swing on it too - not much, but just enough to have the motion of going back and forth constantly.

A silence fell over them for a moment. On the way here, they had kept up smalltalk about the inn, and Victor had explained about a few customers who had come up to talk to him, thinking he was a celebrity. But now that they had seated themselves down, Victor had gone quiet and Yuuri really didn't know if he was supposed to say something.

As he was still mulling it over, Victor eventually broke the silence.

"I thought it might be more comfortable to talk here. I didn't mean to make you feel anxious." Yuuri glanced at Victor, shocked that the other had known what he was feeling. Did he really show it that much on his face? He had tried to keep it hidden, but… He smiled as well as he could and shook his hand.

"No, no, not at all! I'm fine, so what did you want to talk about?" He made a point to push off every signs of worry from his voice, but it probably fell a bit short based on Victor's expression.

"I was just thinking, are you really okay going to the Ice Castle tomorrow? I've noticed you've been uneasy ever since we decided on it so…" Victor looked concerned, and at the face of such genuine question, Yuuri decided to drop the front he had been trying to hold up.

"Yeah, I'm okay with it. I'm just a bit nervous about skating after that embarrassment in the Grand Prix, haha…" His laugh was about as awkward as he felt. He had known Victor for barely two weeks so it was weird to have this kind of discussion already.

"But it wasn't embarrassing at all! You tried your best and looked really cool, and you placed fourth out of everyone in the world!" Victor seemed genuinely shocked at his words, stopping his swing to look at Yuuri. "Is that not something to be proud of?"

Yuuri laughed dryly.

"No, no. I'm glad if it seemed like that but really, I was just trying too hard to get good scores and ended up messing up due to the stress…," he explained. He could still see all the reviews he had read from social media… Saying he had been "trying too hard" had been one of the kinder comments he had seen. "It's nothing to be proud of."

"Why not?" Victor seemed so puzzled by what he was saying, that Yuuri briefly wondered if this was just a culture gap or how come Victor didn't realize _why_ that was embarrassing. Honestly, sometimes Yuuri had to ponder if Victor was a human at all, seeing how he never seemed to feel awkward or embarrassed, not even when he had accidentally stepped on dog poop…

"I mean, it was so clear to everyone that I was feeling the pressure. And then I tried so hard to make my program harder for better points, that I ended up failing jumps I should have been able to do easily…," Yuuri explained, before sighing. "But putting that aside, I don't have any problem going skating with you tomorrow. I even asked my friend if we could go after their official closing time, so we get to skate in peace." Well, mostly Yuuri had asked for that because he just didn't want to risk having to talk to any locals who might recognize him.

"Okay, if you're sure!" Victor said, smiling again. "I'm looking forward to it. Because no matter what you say, I love watching you skate, Yuuri." Yuuri just laughed awkwardly in response, feeling his ears getting warmer. He wasn't sure which he felt more embarrassed by, from having to talk openly about his own problems to someone he had met just recently, or from being complimented.

Most likely both.

* * *

Victor waltzed into the hall, looking around at the rink excitedly. It had been a long time since he had last been here, it had been on the first days he had been assigned to Yuuri before he left for the Grand Prix…

"It's so good to be here again!" he exclaimed, turning to look at Yuuri who gave him a confused look.

"Again?" he asked and Victor immediately tensed up. Whoops.

"Ah, I actually visited here once before on my own, to see what it looked like!" he explained it away, and Yuuri seemed to accept the explanation as he turned to look at the rink. They were both wearing their skates already, and just looking at Yuuri now was making Victor feel a bit excited. Yuuri seemed a lot calmer than Victor had presumed he would be.

In fact, once he got on the ice, he seemed to relax completely for a moment as he began to warm up. Victor just stood there for a while, smiling as he looked at Yuuri pacing around the rink absentmindedly. Yuuri looked so natural on the ice that it made Victor briefly wonder if maybe skating was like flying was to him.

"Victor? Are you not coming?" Yuuri eventually realized Victor had not gotten on the ice yet, and skated to him. Victor snapped out of his thoughts and nodded, taking off the covers from his skates and getting on the ice.

It was a lot flimsier to stand on the ice than it had looked from the sidelines, but he balanced it out by using a little bit of his powers to make himself lighter. Yuuri had returned to skating around the rink, so he had a small moment to himself to get used to it. It took a bit longer than he had initially suspected, but as soon as he got the feeling for it and had used his powers to adjust, he began to skate around the rink with ease.

They kept at it for a little while, skating around the rink on their own - Victor kept glancing at Yuuri though, kind of expectant to watch him skate again. In the beginning, he had been watching Yuuri skate almost daily after all until after the competition, so he had really missed this sight…

Eventually Yuuri called him over to the other end of the rink.

"So, I was kind of wondering what would you like to practice?" Yuuri asked. "It seems like you can at least skate normally well." Victor smiled in response. He knew exactly what he wanted to learn.

"I want to learn how to do jumps!" he answered. Every time he had looked at Yuuri doing jumps, it had always looked like for a moment, he had been able to fly. And Victor wanted to try that as well, to see how it felt like to fly without his wings or powers but with the humane strength he had right now.

"Jumps, huh… Maybe I should have asked this question before we got on ice, since it might have been easier to practice it off-ice first but, let's at least try how it works," Yuuri said. Victor nodded excitedly: he wasn't really worried about it, after all if anything was about to happen he could just cheat a little and use his powers to help him until he learned to do it without them.

As Yuuri began to explain, Victor could barely contain his excitement enough to listen.

* * *

 _Thank you for reading all the way here!_ _The angel fact for today is about how they get their "orders". There are of course rankings between angels, but none of them really hold any authority towards each other. In fact, there's really no one specific who tells them what to do - at least, as far as they know - but instead they have what I would most closely describe as instinct, or calling. They just know what they are supposed to do, where they are needed or to whom they should go._

 _But, while they do not have anyone they're responsible to for their actions - like a boss at a workplace - it still doesn't mean they can do whatever they want. In fact, it is even harder for them to disobey these "orders" when they're basically what they feel is right to do and their purpose. It's similar to how the human body will try it's absolute hardest to not die - you can't just stop breathing voluntarily._

 _Anyways, as for the next chapter, I'm going to actually keep one break from updates! I've been helping my friend move recently, and all that carrying and building furniture has injured my wrists (although, this is just an old tendon damage that tends to come up occasionally so it's nothing serious!) so I want to give them a little rest! So the next chapter will be up on 25th of April instead, I'm sorry for the inconvenience and I thank you for understanding! I hope to see you in the next chapter as well!_


End file.
